


Just Words

by This-Is-Not-Overwatch-Fanfic (Hobbitfing)



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Junkrat loves libraries, M/M, Microfiche, Roadhog actually has to open up and talk, Secrets, and he hates it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-05
Updated: 2016-10-05
Packaged: 2018-08-19 17:52:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8219800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hobbitfing/pseuds/This-Is-Not-Overwatch-Fanfic
Summary: It's sometimes necessary for Roadhog to go places without Junkrat, and a library is a surprisingly convenient place to leave the smaller Junker—at least until Junkrat discovers his companion's horrifying secret: he was directly responsible for the destruction of the Outback.





	

**Author's Note:**

> RP between my wife and I. We were reading in Roadhog's bio about him being part of the Australian Liberation Front and...here you go!

Contrary to what most people expected from him, Junkrat _loved_ libraries. All that information, neatly laid out in little labeled packets, and all it took to move on to something else was a few minutes' searching. Of course, he usually got distracted on the way and ended up reading about horticulture in mountainous regions or something, but that was alright, too. Here, unlike the Outback, nothing _mattered_ the same way. He was free to flit about and learn things just because he wanted to, swapping books whenever his brain changed tack—which was as often and unpredictable as the wind.

Once he discovered this (and made sure Rat wasn't likely to destroy the place), Roadhog got into the habit of leaving his boss at the library of whatever city or town they found themselves in—Junkrat more or less disguised in an oversized hoodie and baggy pants to hide his prosthetics—whenever he had business to conduct that didn't lend itself to having a, well, Junkrat in tow.

The first few times, Junkrat had paced the building—Roadhog had told him to _stay_ , in the way that made it clear he really, actually meant it or there'd be unpleasant consequences like being ignored and Junkrat just _hated_ that, but he'd meant stay in the _building_ , not in a specific place or room. He'd explored the place from top to bottom, rushing back up or downstairs every few minutes to the place Roadhog'd left him, in case Roadhog came back and he wasn't _there_ and Hog thought he'd left or gotten arrested or died of loneliness or hadn't stayed put, and then he'd get in trouble even though he'd done what he was told. Roadhog was _fair_ , but he didn't always _understand_ (and sometimes Rat had trouble explaining.)

Roadhog came back, sure enough, to only the minor issue of a few picked locks that no one had noticed yet, and he ignored how square and hard Junkrat's outline had gotten since he'd seen him last, or the way the scanner at the door beeped as the little Junker ran past. Or the books that always mysteriously appeared in Junkrat's sidecar after these visits.

Today, Junkrat had seen a book about Junkers in a library window. He'd come to a complete and unusually silent halt, Roadhog getting almost half a block away before realizing he was alone—Junkrat tended to be quieter in cities, when he was in awe of all the new things he was seeing hearing smelling feeling (tasting, with or without Roadhog's approval). When he wasn't loudly and continuously updating Roadhog on these sensations, of course.

Noticing how quiet it had gotten, how there wasn't a little grasshopper springing along at his side, Roadhog turned, saw Junkrat standing perfectly still and quiet, and hurried back. If Junkrat wasn't moving or speaking, it usually meant an explosion wasn't far behind.

"Look, Hoggie," he said, uncharacteristically soft. "'s a book about us." He laughed, a little anxiously. "Well, not about _us_ us, but about us. Junkers, see?" Another laugh, this one brittle and sharp. "Didn't think anyone cared enough to write a book." He touched the glass over the book, leaving a smear of greasy ash.

Roadhog frowned. "I wouldn't bother with that one, Jamie, it'll just make you mad." It wasn't likely the author would know what they were talking about, and they probably hadn't even been to Australia, but whatever they wrote wasn't likely to be flattering.

Junkrat was frowning already, his cheeks a little flushed with anger, but he'd made up his mind, and wouldn't be deterred. "Wanna read it," he insisted.

His bodyguard sighed. "Fine. Go get it."

Rat's foot hurt, and so did his stumps, and he'd honestly been fancying a rest anyway but hadn't wanted to say anything, but here was an opportunity. "It'll be boring for you to watch me read. Why don't you go do something fun for a bit, mm?" He wasn't honestly sure what constituted Roadhog's idea of _fun_ when he wasn't with Rat, but it usually seemed to involve grocery shopping.

"One hour," Roadhog warned him. He could always use a little break, but he didn't want to leave Rat alone for too long.

"Yeh," Rat agreed distractedly, already headed into the building. It took him a few minutes to find the book—there were all kinds of squiggly shelves in the way and things to look at and books that _might_ be interesting, but he'd said he was going to read it, so he would. And then he had to find it from behind, because of course the back looked completely different than the front, but at last there it was in his hands. There was a little table right beside the window with a few plastic chairs, so he sat with no small amount of relish, prepared to tear the book to pieces if it pissed him off—literally, if necessary.

There was a lot of text, and he wasn't really in the mood for that, at least not yet, so he flipped through quickly first, just to take the book's measure, cackling with delight (and ignoring other patrons' sounds of displeasure at the noise) whenever he saw a picture of a person or place he knew. It was nice, in a way, but in a way it was also sad, because even though he now knew how horrible Junkertown had been, it had been _home_ , and now he could never ever go back, and any of the Junkers pictured would happily turn him in for his bounty.

Weren't any photos of him, anyway.

He slid the book away with a sigh—hadn't even made him properly mad, just sort of mopey, and how long until Roadhog got back—when a name popped out at him. There it was, just sitting near the bottom of one of the pages: _Mako Rutledge_. It was part of a whole list of names, but that was the only important one. He read them again; yep, only important one. It took him a minute to remember _why_ it was important, and then his hand started shaking. At the end of the list of names was one of those funny little numbers that wasn't part of the sentence, but meant there was more about it on another page. Took him a while to hunt down, but he finally found the right little number, and it said the list was from an article from what he recognized as a major Australian newspaper. Years ago. Before he'd been born, or when he'd just been a tiny little rat-pup.

Junkrat had to get up and move, he'd been still too long and he couldn't think when he was still. He carried the book with him, pressed tight to his chest, frowning at it occasionally and giving it a little shake to make it change what it said, because it was a rotten little liar, but every time he looked it was still there. Mako Rutledge. The man who would be Roadhog, who maybe already had a little fetal Hog curled up inside him, a dark, leathery seed just waiting for everything to go to hell so it could grow.

He saw the sign by chance, stopping so quickly he almost unbalanced. _Archives: Newspapers, Periodicals, Local History_. He'd expected the room to be huge, with boxes and boxes and boxes, but there were only funny little machines, and the sign over them said Microfiche. Think a library'd know how to spell, and he looked inside but didn't see any water, never mind anything swimming about in the little screen, big or small.

A woman was watching him from behind a little counter, and he wanted to tell her that her aquarium was boring and there were no newspapers, but on a whim he held out the book and pointed to the mention of the newspaper article. "Have this?" he asked, the first few words getting choked off in a breathless rush; he hated talking to people out here, away from Junkertown, proper people, not quite Suits maybe, or so Hoggie said, but definitely not like him. Much easier to blow up than talk. Harder blow up _then_ talk, though.

She stared at him for a long moment, then read the text he'd pointed out. "We do. I'll bring it out for you. Have you ever used microfiche before?"

He shook his head; she said it funny, too.

"Wait here."

She was back a moment later, and she loaded something into one of the machines and showed him how to use it before returning to her counter. He spent a few minutes playing with it, scrolling up and down, side to side, before turning serious and actually looking for…what he was looking for. What he hoped he wouldn't want to find.

This didn't just have that name again— _Mako Rutledge_ —but it had a _picture_ , and no matter how Junkrat twisted his head or squinted his eyes, he couldn't _not_ make it look like Hoggie. Younger, definitely. It was a black and white picture, but his hair looked dark rather than light. No tattoo, or maybe it was just covered by his shirt. No mask. Couldn't see all of him. He was standing with a group of people (the list-of-names probably), not smiling, but not frowning either. He looked…Rat had to scramble a bit for the words…triumphant. Righteous.

At first he wasn't sure which words went with the picture, but eventually decided it probably wasn't _Local Cricket Team Wins Championship_. Didn't see any crickets. Probably the one underneath, then: _Omnium Destroyed! Outback Blanketed in Toxic Radiation. Terrorist Organization Australian Liberation Front Suspected_.

No. No, that couldn't be right. He scrolled around again, this time with purpose, trying to find something else, _anything else_ that could possibly have to do with Roadhog—with Mako.

But there was nothing.

He read the article, every third word or so: _dispossessed, angry, violent, blown up, nuclear fallout, uninhabitable_ , and then … _and Mako Rutledge were part of the group suspected to be behind the attack on the Omnium_.

That wasn't right. Couldn't be right. It was _wrong_. Just suspected. Junkrat had suspected plenty of things that'd turned out to be wrong. In fact, he was probably wrong about the picture. It was a different Mako Rutledge. A different man.

Feeling sick, he rolled out of the chair and back to the desk, where he asked for and was given a black marker. He used it to draw on the picture of Mako, adding a mask, a little more girth…yeah, it was him. Suspected, suspected, suspected.

He scribbled out the man entirely, then the whole picture.

"Hey! You can't draw on—!"

But he was already up and gone.

***

When Roadhog came back to the library, Rat wasn't there. He searched everywhere, he called for him as quietly as he could, he even started asking around. Finally he had to conclude that Rat had left.

But why had Rat left? He was getting pretty good at staying put in a library once Hog put him there. Was it the book? Had it pissed him off? That was most likely, though he could have just gotten distracted.

It didn't take too long to locate a few people who had seen Rat and were quite pissed off at him for ruining something. He asked to see what Rat had wrecked and as soon as he saw, he felt his stomach drop.

Where would Rat have gone now that he was furious and knew that Hog had helped to destroy their home? Probably to their motel room to try and grab his stuff before Hog got back. Though maybe he was out blowing shit up and getting in fights. Either way, Hog would find him.

Getting on his bike back outside, Hog took off. He'd catch up.

***

These streets were too fucking _clean_ , there wasn't any trash or anything to kick, and there were too many people, and all of them were looking at him. Well, if they wanted something to look at he'd give it to them. He pulled off the stupid hoodie, leaving him wearing a shirt of Hogg—Roadhog's, so he stripped that off too, stomped on it a few times, threw it in Dumpster, remembered he wanted more shit on the street, so fished it out along with a few other choice pieces of ripe garbage and threw them around. He took off the pants, too, revealing his prosthetic leg and torn, burnt, patchy shorts. Much better. Let these fucking soft, useless pieces of shit see him as he really was, not trying to fit in with them. They thought they could just write him and his kind off, write books about them without even…

He was coming from a different direction than they'd taken from their motel room, so it took a lot of muttering and circling to find anything that looked familiar, and it was a long, frustrating trudge back, snarling at anyone who tried to talk to him. He wanted a big, glowing sign over his head that said _fuck off_ , but his face would have to do. Some bombs would've been nice, but he didn't have much with him, and then he realized even _that_ was stuffed in the stupid hoodie he'd thrown out, and that just made him angrier.

When he got back to what he thought was the right motel, he looked for Roadhog's bike to remind him what room was theirs, but he didn't see it, and eventually he realized that was a good thing, meant Roadhog wasn't back yet. Might not've even realized anything was wrong yet, and wasn't he just capital at _not realizing things were wrong_.

A few angry shouts greeted him as he rapped on windows and peered between blinds, but the murderous look on his face was enough to drive them back inside and lock their doors. Finally he found the right door, with the carefully hidden wires attached to the frame to prevent unauthorized access, and it was just the work of a moment to disable the trap and enter.

Roadhog parked his bike along the side of the motel and headed to their room. There were a few people outside and some of them gave him a distinctly unfriendly look, especially when he went to their door. He checked for their traps and found them disabled, so opened the door to find Rat, dressed far more like a junker than he ought to be in this city.

Hog closed the door behind him. This was likely to get loud.

Every muscle stiff, Junkrat pretended he hadn't heard the door open, that he hadn't noticed a giant wall of muscle and leather enter the tiny motel room, as he continued separating out their things (mostly mixed together by him in the first place) and violently throwing them into a stained, patched canvas bag. He wouldn't be able to take everything; he'd gotten soft, relied on having a motorcycle to transport him and his things, and he'd accumulated much more than he could carry on his own.

"Jamie." Hog's hand went to take off his mask automatically, as he did before they had actual conversations. He wasn't used to not wearing it but it made them too conspicuous here.

Junkrat replied with a snarl and something between a flinch and a spasm. He was bent almost double with the effort of pretending Roadhog wasn't there, his head almost in the bag he was currently shoving t-shirts into.

Roadhog stepped closer carefully, sitting on the edge of the bed with a loud creak. "You know what I did."

Junkrat exploded, all his pent-up anger bursting out, no longer contained. He punched Roadhog, right in his fat stupid gut that was not the best place in the world to curl up for a nap. His hand barely made a ripple. " _Yeah_ I fuckin' know what you did and I had to find out from a—a _newspaper_ , you didn't even care enough to tell me yourself!"

"I'm sorry."

"You're _sorry_?" Junkrat laughed, harsh and broken. "Oh, well, it's all better then, isn't it?" Getting out of the Outback, seeing the world—which had also been Roadhog's fault—and learning that the rest of it wasn't a shithole like the place he'd grown up had only made it all so much worse. While he'd been scrounging to survive and thinking himself a great success, the rest of the world was deciding between fifteen flavours of peanut butter, and the man who'd turned Australia into the shithouse of the world… Growling, he threw himself at Roadhog, punching, kicking and elbowing wildly. He wanted to see _blood_ , dammit, and the fucker was so big he wasn't having any effect. Soon he'd exhausted himself and he angrily blinked away tears, his scrawny chest rising and falling with each heaving breath. He wanted to be furious, but he was just tired, so, so tired.

Roadhog let him go for awhile, then wrapped an arm around him, carefully, grabbing his metal arm to make sure the most painful part of him was held still. "I know." Hog wished he had his mask, he wasn't sure what expression was on his face and he wasn't sure which expression ought to be on his face either. "We fucked everything up. Most of us died during or got sick right after. I might be the only one left now. Stopped being Mako not long after. Wasn't anything left to be Mako for." Hog felt cold and still inside but he knew Rat would prefer a show of emotion, tears, anything. He just didn't have it in him to feel anything about it anymore. It was done. Everything had been finished and nothing could be changed. They'd fucked up their home and their lives and they'd killed off themselves and their families and their friends and there was nothing they could do—nothing he could do—to change that.

But he didn't want to lose Rat over this.

Junkrat strained against Roadhog's enclosing arms, not so much to get away as to force himself to understand what he'd found out today, what Roadhog had just told him. "You were there," he said, slowly and deliberately. "It was you, right?"

He nodded, unable to meet Rat's intense, tear-filled gaze.

"And you…you… _why_ , Hoggie, why?" Junkrat had felt as if he was falling since he first saw that name in that _stupid_ book, and why hadn't he left well enough alone, just listened to Roadhog and kept walking and never found out, like he'd stepped on what he thought was solid only to have it crumble to bits around him as he fell down down down and he didn't know where he'd land or how many pieces he'd be in when he hit the ground.

"We thought we were doing something good. We thought that would get the omnics out of Australia for good and we wouldn't be fighting to keep our homes anymore. We didn't know—" Hog let go of Rat and dug his fingers into his palms. "We didn't know. None of us wanted this."

Junkrat laughed, small and wet. "Hope not. Be pretty fucking stupid." He sighed, nuzzling his face against Roadhog's collarbone, leaving a damp trail. "Pretty fucking stupid," he repeated, even softer. Hog was supposed to be _safe_ , dammit, the one safe thing in this whole forsaken world, and they were going to burn it down _together_ , just the two of them, fuck _it_ for a change after a lifetime of being fucked. "Maybe…" The thought was there, so close, but he couldn't quite make it connect. "Was it like us?" He made a frustrated sound, hoping Roadhog would understand.

Roadhog tilted his head, not quite sure what Rat meant.

"Like…" Rat's fingers curled and twisted as though he could physically pull his thoughts together, make sense of them outside of his head. "Like what we're doing, now. Trying to make them hurt like they hurt us."

"Yeah." Hog held out his hand for Rat's, as he usually did when Rat's hands started clenching or picking or scratching. "We fucked everything up."

Rat's hands immediately curled around Hog's massive one, the way they had so many times before. "But we won't, right? Not for us, anyway, just for anyone who gets in our way?" He sniffed, tearfully. "'cause you're old and you know better now, right?"

"I hope so." With his free thumb, Hog gently brushed away Rat's tears. They left streaks in the ash and other grime on his face. He reached for the pile of their things and grabbed one of his pachimaris, putting it in Rat's lap. "I don't expect you to forgive me."

Squeezing the toy so tight the material squeaked helped him think. "Not like you set out to ruin my life," he said, thoughtfully. "Didn't go, 'Think I'll go blow up the Omnium today, destroy someone who hasn't even been born yet but I'll love one day'. Did you?" He laughed again. "That's thinking long-term, alright." A pause. "You do love me, right? You don't have to say it right now, because then I'll always wonder if you only said it because…but later. If you want. If you stay…" Another sigh. "Don't know why you stay." He squirmed free, gently, and pulled out everything he'd stuffed into the bag, making a messy pile on the bed, then leaned against Roadhog's side again. "Get me food and keep me from getting caught or killed or arrested or…things I don't even know about, I bet. Don't know what you get out of it, besides almost getting all-of-the-above-d. Half share in a treasure that's not doing either of us a fat lot of good…sorry I called you fat, Hoggie. Or did I just think that? Hard to tell, hard to tell." He scratched at a healing burn, sighing with pleasure. "'s not just guilt, is it?" He picked a scab until it bled, and that was better still.

Roadhog took Rat's hands again as he started to pick, letting him toy with his rings. "It's not guilt. Otherwise I'd be doing the whole Outback favours." Or I'd be dead, he thought. "And I am fat, Jamie."

Gleefully, Junkrat took off Hog's rings and rearranged them to spell _FELT_ , one of his favourite pastimes. He giggled. " _Have_ you been doing the whole Outback favours?" He tried to wink seductively up at Hog, mostly looking like he had a facial tic. "Yeah, you are. Fine, fat hog. Just how I like ya." He laughed again, his whole body shaking with mirth. "Good to know you're as much of a fuck-up as me. Perfect Roadhog, destroyed the whole bloody _Outback_. Fuck, Hoggie. Kinda nice to know you _can_ fuck up, honestly." He paused. "'s a good thing not many people know about this, at least not back hom—well, people who care." He rolled himself onto Roadhog's lap. "Won't tell."

Hog didn't say anything about the rings. He always felt something between annoyance and affection when Rat did things like that. No one else would have dared, and somehow that made it special. "Some of them might still remember," he said softly, weaving his fingers into Rat's tangled hair. "But thanks."

**Author's Note:**

> What's this? We've written two stories in this fandom, both of them are complete, angsty, and don't have any sex??? Weeeeeird...
> 
> Apparently Overwatch is good for us.
> 
> I maintain that microfiche will still be around in the future shhhh.
> 
> (Also my mom totally used to leave me at the library or museums. Now I kinda want to write that...)


End file.
